Review: 'Mad Men' - 'Tea Leaves': Harry and Draper go to White Castle

A review of tonight's "Mad Men" coming up just as soon as I have a resume up my sleeve...

"When is everything going to get back to normal?" -Roger

We've now passed Independence Day of 1966, which means the counter-culture is ever more ascendant, and which means the generation gap is about to turn into a generation chasm. We've already dispensed with the period when it was considered fashionable for someone like Paul to take on the airs of a much older man; now there's confusion and hostility between the older generation and the one that's eager to replace it.

And it's that threat of being replaced — even if it's not necessarily by a future flower child — that links all the stories of "Tea Leaves."

In our most prominent story — and, unfortunately, the weakest one, as it involves the show's least compelling main character — Betty gets a medical scare on a routine trip to the doctor for diet pills. She spends the episode convinced she's going to die — and, worse, that the kids will grow up raised by some combination of Henry's mother Pauline and Megan. (Betty is so threatened by the idea of Don with Megan that she still tries to think of her as Don's girlfriend and not his wife, and shaves six years off her age for dramatic effect.) And in that story's closing moments, we're reminded of just how threatened Henry is by Don — even though it was Henry who stole Betty away from Don, he's constantly on edge that the arrangement might reverse itself, and he likes the idea of Betty talking to her ex-husband not one bit.

I didn't especially miss Betty in the season premiere, and though she's packed on some weight since last we saw her(*), she's unchanged in many other ways: chronically unhappy, reluctant or unable to fully articulate the reasons for that unhappiness, and almost stubborn in her myopia. Betty gets the good news about the tumor being benign, and her impulse is to quickly turn it back into a discussion of her being fat, how hideous she is, how she's started to resemble Henry's mother, etc., where Henry, for whatever his faults, is just happy and relieved that his wife isn't going to die of cancer.

(*) Having a female character get fat is one way of dealing with an actress pregnancy you don't want to write into your show. "Frasier" did it with Daphne, for instance. But because January Jones is so slender to begin with, and didn't pack on that much weight, the show apparently had to resort to some of the makeup tricks they used on Elisabeth Moss during Peggy's pregnancy late in season 1, plus a non-pregnant body double for the bath scene. I get that it's an awkard position to be in, story-wise, and Betty having another baby so soon after Gene would not only complicate her life but go against the suggestion here that Henry and Betty's sex life tapered off not long after they moved out of the Ossining house.

"Mad Men" tends to move at a very measured, leisurely pace, but most of the time, I love that. I could have taken a good five more minutes of Don and Harry in Don's car after the Rolling Stones debacle, with Harry desperate to avoid going home, for instance. About the only time I actually become impatient with the pace is when we're spending as much time with Betty as we did tonight. There have been some interesting and/or sympathetic Betty episodes over the years — "Shoot" from season 1 and "Souvenir" from season 3 come to mind — but this wasn't one of them.

Fortunately, Betty's story was at least woven in with some strong material over on the work end of things, where the men and women of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce are also contemplating the idea of being replaced.

In Roger's case, he already has been replaced by Pete in every way but the name on the door, but he keeps fighting it, and he keeps resenting it. And his self-pity doesn't even allow himself to see that he invited Pete's Mohawk stunt in the lobby with his own behavior throughout the season premiere. Roger's tired of feeling challenged by the kid, but he's the one who invited the challenge first by being too complacent with Lucky Strike and the rest of the job, and then by trying to draft off of Pete when nothing else works.

And Roger winds up pushing Peggy to hire new copywriter Michael Ginsberg — who, given both the overriding theme of the episode and Stan's prophetic comments (which very much echoed Dr. Faye telling Don he'd be married within a year), seems likely to usurp her role as the rising young star in SCDP creative.

But at least Roger's aware that the times, they are a-changing, even if he doesn't like it. At the start of the series, it was a joke to him that the agency might have a Jew in a prominent role, where here he acknowledges to Peggy that having someone like Michael "makes the agency more modern."(**) And Michael is a transition figure of sorts, from the traditional immigrant Jews represented by Rachel Menken's father — or by Michael's own father, who reacts to news of his hiring by reciting the priestly blessing in Hebrew — to the secular hipsterism of Woody Allen and Lenny Bruce.
(**) That he does it a half-breath after making a racist crack about Don's new black secretary suggests that he still has a long way to come.

Throughout the episode, we see various misunderstandings and awkward moments between the generations. Don worries that Megan doesn't fully appreciate death, while Megan genuinely doesn't understand how Don could be okay enough with Betty's condition to go out one night, and then be in a funk the next day. Don's backstage friend Bonnie has no idea who Charlton Heston is, just as Michael is puzzled when his father mentions the death of former Tigers and Red Sox outfielder Pete Fox, while Raymond from Heinz understands little about The Rolling Stones and assumes Don can get them to do a jingle for beans.

But there are also moments where the older generation demonstrates a pretty good handle on the replacements. Roger does realize the value someone like Michael might have for the firm's image, after all. And sure, Don's much more in his element charming an older woman like Raymond's wife than he is making small talk with Bonnie, but he also zeroes in on enough of what makes her tick that she feels the need to step away from him for a moment, asking to try his business card on the doorman as her transparent excuse. And we see at the end of their encounter that the new generation doesn't fully understand the people they hope to replace, either, when she complains that older men like Don don't want her to have fun "just because you never did," which allows Don to get as fatherly as possible and suggest, "No. We're worried about you."

By the close of the episode, we know that Megan won't be replacing Betty as the kids' mother figure anytime soon, but Roger's still feeling threatened, Peggy might soon be, and there will come a point where Don probably can't carry on a conversation with a teenager without telling him or her to get off his lawn. Roger wants things to get back to normal, but the rapid change going on in this period of history — or, as we can see in present-day, the rapid change that happens in life — says that anyone who thinks things will ever go back to exactly the way they were before is just itching to be replaced by someone more eager to look forward than back.

Some other thoughts:

* Jon Hamm made his directorial debut with this one, which was actually filmed ahead of the season premiere to give him adequate prep time. (It's the same reason Bryan Cranston has only directed "Breaking Bad" premieres, and why Zachary Levi wasn't prominently featured in the two "Chuck" episodes before the ones he directed; the pre-production work eats up too much acting time otherwise.) Though I had my aforementioned issues with the Betty material, I thought Hamm did a good job with the visual style, and also working with his familiar co-stars in a different capacity. As i said before, all the Don/Harry material was light and engaging, and Betty's desperate phone call to Don was a strong moment for both January Jones and Hamm himself. One thing I didn't love — which could have been Hamm or could have been the editor — was not only the frequent use of dissolves, but the way they at times seemed to cut the first scene too short before moving into the second. It was particularly jarring going from Betty getting out of the tub to Betty at the doctor's office.

* Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce has now taken on two notable new staffers, both of them minorities. I already talked about Ginsberg, played by Ben Feldman from "Drop Dead Diva," while Teyonah Parris plays Don's new secretary Dawn, who inspires various bits of amusing Don/Dawn confusion/wordplay. I think the jury's still out on Feldman here, as he seemed very mannered in the first interview with Peggy. But there's also a sense that he's always "on" at work, and the guy we saw coming home to his father's apartment was dialed back a fair amount, so the affect may be intentional.

* "Bewitched" debuted a couple of months before the events of the fourth season premiere, so it was only a matter of time before some character on the show would compare Don to Darrin Stephens (or, here, by mother-in-law Endora's dismissive nickname for him, "Durwood"). I'd always figured Roger would be in that scene and get compared to Larry Tate, but instead it's Harry being held up as some kind of Abner Kravitz, the poor bastard.

* Was this the first significant Roger/Peggy interaction since she asked for Freddie's office late in season 2? Either way, more please. Elisabeth Moss and John Slattery were terrific together (though who is Slattery not good with?), and it's a mark of how far Peggy's come in the agency that he'd be treating her as, if not an equal, than someone at least worthy of attention and some small respect.

* So who was the band that Harry thought were the Rolling Stones? A Twitter follower pointed out that some of the members of Styx called themselves The Tradwinds in the early '60s, but they changed their name by 1965 because a Rhode Island band called The Trade Winds had become successful. Even stoned, would Harry confuse a bunch of guys from Rhode Island with one of the bands at the forefront of the British Invasion?

* As mentioned last week, I'm screener-less for the rest of the season. I wound up staying up tonight to write this one, but as I'm about to publish, I'm feeling very much the old man on the verge of being replaced by hippies. So my guess is future reviews are going to come sometime in the late morning on Monday. UPDATE: And, of course, when I stay up to write them, I inevitably forget things, so a few more bullet points:

* Henry makes a reference to "Romney" being a clown. That's him talking about Mitt's father George, the Michigan governor who was big enough in the Republican party that he ran against Goldwater for a time during the 1964 primaries. Let me remind you, as always, of this blog's No Politics rule, which for the most part has only had to cover contemporary politics. If you want to talk about George Romney and why a top aide of John Lindsay might not like the guy, go ahead. If you want to discuss whether Weiner and Levy were taking a shot at Mitt, that's a no go. Any comments about the Romney currently in the headlines will be deleted. Thank you.

Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com

Comments

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Alan, I've seen this mentioned elsewhere, but on tonight's show, Ginsburg's father is reading Jimmie Foxx's obit. (At least I think it's Jimmie Foxx he's talking about. Couldn't really hear him that well.) Now, Foxx's death didn't actually take place until July of '67. Error on the writers' part, or are we really in the year 1967?

I found the episode odd and jarring. Didn't love it but it had some moments. I didn't realize Hamm directed this until I read it here, but while I was watching it, it popped in my head several times that it seemed very different. I also did not realize they added makeup effects and used a body double for Jones. I just thought maybe I never saw a photo of her when she was most pregnant, so I guess they sold me on the makeup.

Wow, you really must not have been paying attention. The body double was twice the size of January Jones (terrible, took me completely out of the scene) and the fat prosthetics looked like something out of a bad Eddie Murphy movie. Horribly distracting and well below this show's usual standard of excellence

I think Hampshi is right. I can see the prosthetic too in the image accompanying the review. Her mouth area is normal, but there is a circle around it and it looks like the makeup is built out from there.

I found the prosthetic distracting as well, but that's definitely supposed to be a bandage from her biopsy. In all fairness, I don't know that I've ever seen a "fat suit" on TV that wasn't distracting.

Yes, you can see both in the image. When JJ first appeared in the episode, it kind of took my breath away to see her so heavy. Reading all the comments now and thinking about it some more, they did overdo it. But maybe if they had made her only slightly heavier it wouldn't have been as apparent. And we'd all be here asking each other, "Does it look like Betty gained weight?"

In any case, the BBW Betty was cheering, at least for her giving up the restrictive dieting that would, of course, frak up her set-point. Now all she has to do is get right with herself before Sally starts her own eating disorder.... so much of Betty's energy was pushing against Don's implacable mystery that when she lets go of the rope, she really lets go.... sad to know that the greater worry for her is being fat, rather than having a clean martyr's death through cancer. I wonder whether she stopped smoking, too?

As for the rest of the gang, I'd be concerned about Mr. Ginsberg, if only due to him getting so much screen time, and our favorites, this early in the game, so little. Yes, I want more, more, more -- as MAD MEN always leaves us wanting....

I've been thinking about Bewitched ever since Mad Men started. Funny to think it was so long before it actually premiered! Aside from the ad agency itself, the old offices of Don and Roger reminded me a lot of the offices at McMann Tate (it could be faulty childhood memory but the walls and the things on them...)

I've been watching Bewitched reruns for about 2 months now and STILL haven't seen Derwood 2.0. Now I noticed they're not rerunning it anymore. I just recall he was always mad, and had a very square head. Duncan 1.0 was awesome, though.

Betty had to be reminded of how the kids might react to the news by Don. Even when we might feel al little sympathy for her, I am again reminded that she seems to forget her three children, and only concentrates on herself. I know its a tough time for her, but really wouldn't a mother think of her children first?

I think that's a little too harsh on Betty. I don't blame her in this instance - everyone reacts differently when frightened like that. It's a bit of a No True Scotsman to say that "a mother wouldn't" this or that. I wouldn't call Betty a good mother, but I equally wouldn't judge her motherhood on her reaction to hearing that she might die. Of course it's different for Don. He thinks of the broader consequences, because he would have to deal with them after she'd be gone - not her.

You know, the IDEA of Cancer was so HUGE back then, people didn't even SAY THE WORD! Notice, it's not until Don is talking to Roger that it ever gets said out loud. Even with the woman who Betty has lunch with. It was considered a certain death, no way around it. So, I excuse Betty if her brain went into some hyper-fear mode and she didn't do it "right". I thought there was a truth to her reaction. This is where the term "politically correct" got it's bad name. From people saying what they think it correct, instead of what they really mean.And THAT is why I love this show. Matt exposes the truth every chance he gets.

@PA and @Ritz, if this were the sole evidence that Betty is a poor mother that thinks of herself before the kids, I would give your argument more credence. But given the history AND the fact that this is a story and characters do things for a reason, I'm with Nathan.

I liked the Betty storyline, though I could have done without the "fat" part of it. Or her weight gain could have been less severe (and thus the make-up job less ridiculous). Its also just another thing that I don't fully buy about the character (Betty has been vigilant about her appearance from day one). That she is thoroughly depressed on the other hand is a great story to keep following again. Betty is still completely unfulfilled in her life as a housewife (just to a more faithful man) and I think exploring the very real consequences of that remains a great avenue for the show to touch on from time to time. I also loved the phone call to Don, and from Don back to Betty (if failing to get through to her). I like that they are showing that people who share children stay intimately connected in important ways like that especially at a moment like that one. Its a bond not easily broken, or replaced. They aren't ever going to not care about each other. Don seemed less creepily under a spell this week, so that was nice as well.

I liked the Betty storyline too. It was very interesting to see that she is just as unhappy and unfulfilled. Before - she could rationalize/martyrize to herself that Don was the cause of it all. But she doesn't have that anymore - so now the new scapegoat? None. She has nothing. And I think that is why she might have wanted a bad outcome. Because being sick, would make her a "subject" again. I think she was a bit crushed after that phone call... I don't think I am expressing very well.

Was anyone other than me reminded of Cybil Sheppard's Moonlighting character (which shot some episodes during her real-life pregancy) when seeing Big Betty? Some of the wardrobe of both characters felt similar.

Regarding Hamm's directorial debut, have to think he requested the use of more dissolves in this week's episode, unless there's a new editor starting with this show. Guess we'll find out if more eps start going dissolve-crazy going forward.

AMG, I think it's plausible in at least one way. Betty spent a lot of time socializing with neighbors in her old home. She doesn't have that support system and we know she doesn't have much of a family. I suspect that she is far lonelier than before. It's not surprising for someone to move on to new coping mechanisms in such situations especially if she's laying off the alcohol.

I didn't mind the Betty storyline but I loved the end where she ends up eating Sally's leftover ice cream with "I am 16, going on 17" playing in the credits. Don let Betty stay a little girl, emotionally --- let her have her fits, get her way, as he was getting "his" way too. Henry thought he was marrying a woman but Betty will forever want to be a spoiled little girl. Thinking she can have whatever she wants (food in this case) without consequence.

I just wanted to remind viewers that it has been mentioned more than once that Betty was a "bigger" child-Grandpa Gene even told Sally about how his wife would leave Betty at the shops to make her walk home and force her to lose weight. So, Betty letting herself go and getting bigger is not out of character for her at all.

To me that song at the end, with Betty sitting there eating Sally's leftover Sundae (depressed and stuck, while clearly trying to be a better mom for her daughter), was an incredibly powerful statement about women's lots at the time (mostly looking backward in time, but not entirely). The lyrics that played in immediate relation to that scene were "your life, little girl, is a blank page for men to write on, for men to write on." To me that was no accident, but a powerful (and ominous) comment about where Sally could be in a few years, and how much Betty has been written on.

I also agree the Betty storyline was entertaining. It was something new -- not the usual whiny kid-slapping mother routine. I actually felt empathetic toward her and that's a first! I give actress January Jones and director Hamm credit for that. I think reviewers and watchers hate Betty so much at this point they are prone to instinctively hating any and every storyline regarding her. She is a despicable character for sure but I had no problems with this story arc. It was more interesting than some of the first episode's dry office conversations. And wow, they put her in some big tent ugly-ass dresses! The first dress actually matched the hideous floral pattern on the teacup. How low she has fallen!

Although I don't love Betty and I agree the makeup was pretty second-rate, it was a noble attempt to address JJ's pregnancy without making Betty pregnant again. Plus, it will be easier to explain JJ's return to svelteness after the baby---stick to your thyroid meds, and the pounds will begin to fall away. A tumor causing hypothyroidism does cause rapid weight gain, and it's plausible to me that even a character obsessed with her own looks would succumb to the depression that is common with the disease. Imagine if you did obsessively watch your diet and tried to exercise, even though your body felt constantly tired, but you still gained weight? If I felt like everything I did had no effect, I'd be finishing off my daughter's uneaten ice cream sundae too. It's a vicious snowball effect.

It is a great work-around by Weiner and Co, that's for sure, but it does seem to work with the character overall. Betty continually finds herself in situations where she should be happy but can never pull the emotion off. To let her vanity go out the window is the closest she can get to rock bottom. My favorite bit was her reaction to Henry not seeing her gain weight and being upset about it. With such a domineering mother, I'm guessing she takes it that if Henry gave her gruff about the weight, that would show he cares. More of this in my post, The Ballad of Betty Franics, here: http://bit.ly/HamLtU

One thing that would have made Betty's new found fatness and ongoing depression would have been to make her hair and make up less neat. She looked as glamorous and Grace Kelly-like as she usually does from the nose up, which is why the fat prosthetics seem so jarring and noticeable. She's fat, she's in a moo-moo, she's not going to take the time to style her hair and put on her make up. Right?

Are we positive that the tumor is really benign? I feel like there was a device in the script that ensured Henry wouldn't answer the phone and that Betty could be concealing the actual news. Not sure of this though.

I immediately thought the same thing. Betty has never been fully comfortable or able to express her truth withothers, but the closest if any was Don. This wouldn't be the first time she was reluctant to tell Henry something.

That's the thing that was bugging me. Thyroid tumors can easily cause problems even if they are benign, which most are. I find it much, much easier to believe that Betty is hypothyroid than that she suddenly got that sluggish and put that much weight on just because she's depressed. She's certainly been depressed before.

The last Peggy/Roger interaction I recall was in Shut the Door, Have a Seat, when they were collecting files from the old office and Roger asked her to fix him coffee and she said "no."

The scene where Betty returns home from the doctor was interesting. The camera was set up in a wood paneled room (home office? library?), and it was stationary while you saw Betty moving frantically back and from across the doorway. Hanging on the wall was the portrait of her mother, last seen in season two in her father's house. It's a very stern face, and from what we know about her, she wouldn't have approved of Betty's weight gain. Nice callback.

I thought for part of the episode that Weiner was trying to make Betty a more sympathetic character, but when she acted like cancer was her preferred choice to weight gain, I went back to hating her.

I am really enjoying Pete and Peggy coming into their own. And I really like how Megan navigates her relationship with Don. She's still getting to know him, but she is honest and she holds her ground, and she doesn't understand it when he treats her like Betty.

One of the best parts of last season was how quickly things started happening, so it's a little frustrating to seem them return to the glacial pace of seasons 2 and 3. Though, I agree with Alan, Betty's increased presence contributes to that.

As someone who now lives on the West Coast, I love that Harry was eating White Castle hamburgers. I wonder what's going on in his marriage. He did cry during the Carousel scene (season 1), but that incident occurred after his wife kicked him out (or banished to the couch) because he slept with the secretary. Safe to say that the Crane marriage is on the rocks.

In previous seasons, I never noticed that Betty never ate, although I did want to stop her from finishing Sally's sundae. Are Betty's eating habits a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation?

It was nice to see that she is acting nicer to Sally. I don't see it as a long term change, though. sigh.

We were introduced to Dawn, but they did not delve any more into race relations following the premiere. I just know that somebody (most likely Roger) is going to say something really bad to Dawn and I can't wait to see how the show handles that and what everybody's reaction in the office is going to be.

I can't wait to see if Dawn is clever and gets the chance to step up the way Peggy did. Back when Peggy told Abe a "Negro" had just as much chance of getting promoted as she did, there were no African-American employees.

Tons of great lines last night, including Roger talking about his "free-flowing" client meeting: There were two of them, but by the end of the evening, there were three!" And the dinner with the Heinz client, when Megan corrects him on the name of the Stones song: "Tims is on MY side." He repllies, "Yes dear - it is."

I'm sure it makes me terrible but I think it's as much of a sign of how little I care for the character that I was sort of rooting for the tumor to be malignant.

Tbat's harsh, I know, but the two things I'm interested in in this show are SCDP and Don himself. Now that Betty isn't really a part of either world her appearances on the show are probably going to seem increasingly out of place and annoying because they take us away from the more interesting bits of the show.

Um... me too, actually. In fact, in an otherwise underwhelming episode overall, by the end, when Betty is utterly ridiculous and scarfing down ice cream, I found myself saying to my wife: "This is my favorite episode, because to [heck] with Betty Francis!" I'm a horrible person I'm sure, but man do I still hate her.

I too was happy that they finally had a Betty story I cared somewhat about and Betty's smelling of her children and drinking it in indicated her mortality may have finally been giving her some perspective but then, nope, the tumor is benign, and she's right back to being Betty. A raised and dropped opportunity, IMO.

Thanks for the review, as always, Alan, you helped me see some connections I had not. And I'd been racking my brain where I'd heard of the Tradewinds before and the Styx bullet point cleared that up.

Hamm-handed. An absolutely awful episode, maybe the worst in the series. I think Mr. Sepinwall was downright kindhearted in his review (and unlike Alan I have enjoyed the Betty character and most of her storylines/foregrounded episodes). The jarring quality of her appearance took me right out of it. I simply could not immerse myself in the world of these characters. I couldn't even see Betty Draper, I could only see pregnant January Jones and whatever padding or make-up they used to make her look like an absolute behemoth. I mean, a little weight gain is one thing, or when you spread it out over a whole season like Year 1 Peggy, but it was almost unintentionally comic how enormous she was - it looked like someone pumped her full of lard, she looked like a drag queen at times, just an abominable decision. You take almost two years to give us this new season and you can't work around a pregnancy other than to make Betty gargantuan?Mike Ginsberg's Jewish accent/patois was also way over-the-top, especially in his initial meeting with Betty. It was like a bad anti-Semitic parody, a caricature, with the plaid jacket and that whole Catskills Jewish comedian syntactical style. Yeesh.White Castle was amusing and way better than backstage at the Stones concert. That whole vibe seemed obviously played on a soundstage and everything about it was: "Look everybody, We're in The Sixties now!" It had everything except some Laugh-In style camerawork or somebody saying 'Groovy'.A thoroughly unpleasant evening of Mad Men. There are some sub par episodes out there, and whenever I've doubted this show before it has come back strong, but this one was a flat out stinker, a real dud. The Pete/Roger dynamic was the only minutely interesting section. I particularly liked Sterling's line: "When is everything gonna get back to normal?" It fits with the show's themes about America and its desire to ignore history, and people everywhere and their reluctance to accept change (Don's take on American Airlines, Henry chiding Betty for her childish worldview, and various other moments from the series were echoed in that comment). Roger Sterling's world is ending.

"Every generation wants to be the last. Every generation hates the next trend in music they can’t understand. We hate to give up those reins of our culture. To find our music playing in elevators. The ballad for our revolution, turned into background music for a television commercial. To find our generation’s clothes and hair suddenly retro."-Chuck Palahniuk

Absolutely correct - I agree on the Betty part, it was really comical how overweight she was portrayed to be. I think due to her limited acting abilities, they made symbolism do the heavier lifting: she's not fat but VERY fat, over the top, she isn't sick, she has a TUMOR, her daughter won't eat more than a bite of the LARGE ICE CREAM dish so Betty does, she makes love with her husband because it's been too long... and of course, the dream sequence, which was just as easy to "decode". Soap Operas are less melodramatic. Basically January Jones was a prop in her scenes. And doubly correct with Mike Ginsberg - I was squirming after a few lines of his, come ON, over-the-top doesn't describe it! Here it comes.. wait for it, a Mein Kampf JOKE. This in 1966, in a work place you want a job at... SURE...sure... The romanticisation is a misunderstanding of entertainers, comedians and then on top of that, "Woody Allen/Lenny Bruce" combination, like as if they are the same off-stage as on, as if it is just natural, not cultural work-mode. As if Jewishness is being a natural neurotic gag machine, with great timing and insights, and they go home to their first-generation father who must at that moment provide a Jewish prayer, a couple of seconds after talking about getting laid by bringing home two women... Because they are Jewish, they have to be heavy-handed symbols, mega-Jewish, like Bruce, Sahl, Allen and Jazz Singer all rolled up in one? Why not let the character show it as Peggy did over episodes, why everything in one instance. Peggys religion was handled more calmly as she was showing the hints of Vatican II and her pregnancy. There was little revealed by character, most everything was telegraphed by standard tv Hallmark sign-system. If Jewish means you have to say Mein Kampf and be neurotic at a job application, then obviously no one there understands the more complex point of assimilation and the new kind of cultural revealing that occurs with certain comedians on stage first, not ad execs trying for a Fortune 500 firm.

Absolutely correct - I agree on the Betty part, it was really comical how overweight she was portrayed to be. I think due to her limited acting abilities, they made symbolism do the heavier lifting: she's not fat but VERY fat, over the top, she isn't sick, she has a TUMOR, her daughter won't eat more than a bite of the LARGE ICE CREAM dish so Betty does, she makes love with her husband because it's been too long... and of course, the dream sequence, which was just as easy to "decode". Soap Operas are less melodramatic. Basically January Jones was a prop in her scenes. And doubly correct with Mike Ginsberg - I was squirming after a few lines of his, come ON, over-the-top doesn't describe it! Here it comes.. wait for it, a Mein Kampf JOKE. This in 1966, in a work place you want a job at... SURE...sure... The romanticisation is a misunderstanding of entertainers, comedians and then on top of that, "Woody Allen/Lenny Bruce" combination, like as if they are the same off-stage as on, as if it is just natural, not cultural work-mode. As if Jewishness is being a natural neurotic gag machine, with great timing and insights, and they go home to their first-generation father who must at that moment provide a Jewish prayer, a couple of seconds after talking about getting laid by bringing home two women... Because they are Jewish, they have to be heavy-handed symbols, mega-Jewish, like Bruce, Sahl, Allen and Jazz Singer all rolled up in one? Why not let the character show it as Peggy did over episodes, why everything in one instance. Peggys religion was handled more calmly as she was showing the hints of Vatican II and her pregnancy. There was little revealed by character, most everything was telegraphed by standard tv Hallmark sign-system. If Jewish means you have to say Mein Kampf and be neurotic at a job application, then obviously no one there understands the more complex point of assimilation and the new kind of cultural revealing that occurs with certain comedians on stage first, not ad execs trying for a Fortune 500 firm.

Completely agree on this being one of the worst episodes. I hate when script writers resort to catastrophic disease. And the scene with the new copywriter's Dad at the end, in that Stanley Kowalski apartment, really bothered me. I'm not saying none of us is poor, but that's not how we NY Jews, even the poorest ones, lived in the Sixties.

"That whole vibe seemed obviously played on a soundstage and everything about it was: "Look everybody, We're in The Sixties now!" It had everything except some Laugh-In style camerawork or somebody saying 'Groovy'."

Right on, Stephanie. About the only thing missing in that scene were Jack Webb and Harry Morgan with their classic 'Dragnet' deadpan cop delivery.

Is it me or is it completely out of character for Betty Draper/Francis to be that overweight? She wouldn't have gone to the doctor or somethin months earlier? Like after she gained ten pounds? She looked like she ate another human being. And is the show saying she got that heavy because of a tumor on her thyroid? Or because she's guzzling down sundaes two at a time? Really mixed messages from the show on this one. Maybe Hamm a little bit of a novice as director didn't hepl? I absolutely loved the premeire but I thought this one had logic holes.

I bought it. If her thyroid tumor was causing her to start to gain weight, through no real fault of her own, paired with the depression she's obviously going through, I can see her just essentially saying, "fuck it," and eating whatever she wanted to, thus making it worse...

I tend to have more sympathy for Betty than the average person, and I'm always looking for redemption/growth for her, and I thought her sitting down with a sundae and offering her daughter a sundae was this huge deal for her. Henry told her it was OK if she was fat. He loved her anyway, and didn't notice and didn't care, plus she had that brush with death and that conversation with her friend. She is thinking about how she's been living her life.

It is OK for her to want and enjoy a sundae, and it is OK for her daughter to eat one (if she wants) and it won't wreck Sally's chances for happiness. It's a moment of liberation for her. There's this whole other way of being a person even if you can't fit into the fabulous clothes you once wore. And with a house like that, she can get bigger fabulous clothes, I'm sure. Henry's there, Don's there, she's not cast asea even if she looks different. She's not as lonely as her friend, and she is aware of that. She's maybe even grateful for it. Consciously, actively grateful.

She gained weight because she's sitting on her ass eating junk food. She's too depressed to care. And remember, women in those days weren't working out so she packed on weight. She's tiny, she probably gained 15-20 pounds, but it showed all over the place. Clumsy make up job aside, I don't find it all that unrealistic.

Re: the tumor - who knows WHAT it was. It was a mass on her lymph node, and she's prone to drama. Every time it was mentioned it sounded more and more serious which is consistent with the kind of hysteria Betty's prone to and the kind of morose reaction Don would have.

It was a tumor on her thyroid, which could be indicative of cancer. I didn't find Betty's reaction to be overly dramatic in the slightest -- cancer was even more terrifying back then than it is now. It may as well have been a death sentence. As others have said, a benign tumor on the thyroid can still cause hypothyroidism and tremendous weight gain, with or without the junk food. I have mixed feelings on this episode; the fat suit makeup was just very distracting.

This episode was so hard to watch for me -- but after the fact, I've found this harsh reaction to the Betty storyline curious. Why does Betty "deserve" to have a thyroid condition and get fat? Does Don "deserve" to get an STD or be diagnosed with prostate cancer or something?

Thank you for pointing that out Janet. Betty is a horrible person/mother. Don has been horrible to women over the years (and some of his colleagues). So if one is going to argue that a despicable character should get cancer and die, one should at least admit the same could be said of Don Draper.

Don is horrible person/father to his children too. Most of the time he neglected them, never even came home most nights, to his wife or children while he was off with one lover after another. Ignoring his children completely. Product of his times /environment yes. But so is how Betty, in how she treats her children. (she was expected to settle down and have children, although she might not have wanted to, her mother died very young, she was never given any value except her looks and to bear children, children are seen and not heard in the 60's) Yet Don gets a pass, ALL THE TIME. Oh and need to bring some sympathy to Don. The writers give some sympathetic moments to Don all the time, but very few for Betty. Especially last season, the WRITING for Betty was HORRIBLE.

When I said I didn't want to sound sadistic, I meant it. I don't think she deserves it, but, I mean, look at Don's reaction to even the thought of her having some terminal illness.

Obviously, it's too early in the series for Don to make such a huge change, but I think it would have made Don see that what he has is good, that is marriage to Megan isn't what he wanted, maybe Betty would have been his new Anna, in that he could be his Dick Whitman self to her, etc...

Plus, a main character dying midway through the series is unheard of, so I thought it would have been an intriguing storyline.

I was thinking about that, too, Bobby. But Heston didn't make movies that teens would be interested in during the mid-60s, and "Ben-Hur' would have been a long time ago for that teen. Once "Planet of the Apes" comes out in 1968, she'll know who he is.

Because I was 10 when Titanic came out, my first reaction was that a movie that won as many Oscars as Ben Hur would be known to anyone who didn't live under a rock, but of course, Titanic was much more targeted at 10-15 year olds. Part of it would depend on whether they were putting those movies on TV back then.

Heston had just come out with the epic Khartoum in June 1966 and the The Agony and the Ecstasy in October of '65, both nominated for multiple Oscars. According to IMDB he was starring 2-3 big films a year. Heston was a huge star, but not someone a 15 year old would have found particularly hip.

My read is that the girls were messing around with Harry, and by Don's reaction I think he realized it.

I thought it was odd that she didn't know the name. I was her age in 1966, lived in several big cities in the northeast (including NYC), and knew exactly who Charlton Heston was. I actually think that in many ways it was harder to be ignorant of popular culture then than it is today because it wasn't nearly as fragmented. IIRC, there were only about six tv channels, and if you hadn't seen Heston at the movies, you'd have seen his name on a marquee, he'd turn up on What's My Line?, in Life or Look magazine, he'd be mentioned on the radio, or you'd hear your parents refer to him. There were far fewer music, tv and movie stars, and the ones we had were sort of touchtones in a much more unified culture. You may not have been a follower of a particular star, but at least you were aware of them. ... Of course, the girl backstage could simply be too stoned to recognize a familiar name. Maybe she was just teasing Don. Or she just isn't a typical teen. Strange to have never heard of him, I think, but that's what makes the world go round.

Betty's storyline made me very uncomfortable, because I don't really know what's behind it. Was it done to take down the character and/or the actress a peg, or to provide some sort of story for the character - what?! The Francis Adams Family house is creepy in the extreme, too - who in their right minds would choose such a dark, weird, forbidding house?

YES on the Harry thing. I think Harry brings a lot to the show, but two episodes in a row with a LOT of "Harry's obnoxious" gags? I think we've spent more time with Harry this season than Pete, which is absolutely ridiculous.

@Ben, Because we're not getting to know Harry, Harry is being used as a one-note joke machine. OK, two-or-three note joke machine. He can do douchey, he can do smarmy, and he can do incompetent. (Although the bit about "if you want to eat, eat before you go home" was good). With Harry, they're having the problem Parks and Rec has had with Chris Traeger.

And with Don, it almost seems like they're having the Ann Perkins Problem. It's almost like Don didn't have anything else to do, so they threw him into the Stones concert scene. Why would Don go to that? At this point in the company's growth, wouldn't he leave this to an account man? Or did Don just want to go and observe the teenage wildlife? While I liked the scenes at the concert, Don's presence there didn't make sense to me.

@Fresser28 The Francis house is very right for the time period on the east coast - probably built around the turn of the century, those houses were considered grand (and many still stand even today). Also, it's quite interesting to show how Betty may be trying to live in the past by buying that relic that they live in versus seeing how Don and Megan live in their very modern apartment in the city.

Agree with the people saying Betty's weight gain seems out of character. From season one, we've known that this woman is OBSESSED with her physical appearance. I understand she's depressed, but she's basically been depressed throughout the whole show, and has taken it out in other ways (like raging out on her innocent children and telling them she'll cut off their fingers).

And I HATE Betty, but...I couldn't help but feel bad for her. Maybe because losing control of my eating habits and getting fat is one of my worst fears, but that ending shot of her eating the second sundae kinda disturbed me. Stereotypical girl thing to say, but whatever.

I hope this Fat Betty thing goes on for awhile. I would hate if the writers only made that storyline to accommodate her pregnancy and she miraculously loses weight in the next episode. Maybe that's another reason why a thyroid cancer storyline intrigued me...

I understand why everyone’s saying this isn’t their favorite episode, and I can see why, but I have to say for me it’s pulling me more into the theme of the show, which really is about the transition of the sixties. I mean, how painful is it to see cool Don become uncool Dad? For those in my age range (which is pretty close to Weiner’s), Don IS the age of our parents, and this is the show where we see how they became “old.” As for Betty, her scenes are always slow because, in the world of the housewives of the time, nothing happened! I actually found more sympathy for Betty here because she’s damned if she does and damned if she doesn’t. She kept herself perfect, and obsessively thin, so it would make sense to me that given a little nudge she would just give up, let go, and be fat. I think the issues people are having with her revolve around how uncomfortably close to home her issues are. And no she didn’t think of the children at first, but she sure was over July 4th. Was anybody else sad to think how sad it is that the Stones finally did sell out (that is sell their song to an advertiser)? Happy that those of us on the West coast are getting a chance to weigh in early!

Srobe - I'm guessing that now that Megan is married to Don, she can afford the wardrobe she wants whereas as a working receptionist/secretary living in NY, last season she had the wardrobe she could afford, that is to say, very few or no new items at all. It makes sense to me.

I agree with those who found him stereotypically "NY Jewish". Being one myself, I cringed at how over the top he was. Secondly, when we saw Ginsburg's home life, the first thing that occurred to me was that this guy's a pathological liar. Didn't he reference having no family at all, or am I imagining that?

I know that the series needs a backstabbing character to betray, and thereby toughen up, Peggy but does it have to be this guys. Not likeable. At. All. Even Stan grew on me with his neanderthal ways. Don't see it happening with this new guy. Just my $0.02.

Considering how over-the-top the character has been developed so far, so fast, that "no family" can be revealed in time to mean either he's ashamed of what he does have. It seems he is now motherless, and a father who wants to have him buy prostitutes for both of them to celebrate but then also gives him a heavy prayer, etc.. that can also turn into a Holocaust-background storyline later. None of which really makes the character intro any more compelling.

I feel like in this era with Allen and Bruce and the prevailing youth culture, it's possible a guy like Michael, not wanting to be like his father,would play this up outside home. Peggy herself seems to note how easily he switches on/off.

I don't think Michael is there to be back-stabbing annoying guy. I think he's actually a quite humble kid with a knack for advertising, who knows that humble don't cut it in the ad world. So he overcompensates/midreads Peggy at his first meeting, then dials it back with Don on Peggy's advice. The meek kid we see at home with his dad, or the awe-struck kid gazing out the window at SCDP is the real Michael.

Yeah, he'll probably end up putting Peggy through her paces, but I'll bet we'll see a reluctance behind the misery he'll cause her.

ARGH! Let me be clear, I do not hate the character of Betty, much less the actress, January Jones. However I am royally FED UP with the WRITING of constantly focusing on Betty's negative side--and not in a humorous way like they've had at times done with Pete, Roger or Harry. And still the show typically show them in a positive light. The show even managed to show Joan's rapist-husband in a positive light stitching up Joan's cut finger before sending him off the Vietnam.

But not Betty. It's like there's some mandate to show why someone like Betty who looks like Grace Kelly can have an almost wholly unattractive personality. An the show has overwhelmingly done since Season 2 ended. She was happy when Sally got to go to the Beatles (the only time in the series when Betty was genuinely smiling, not one of those tiny formal Stepford smiles) and she protected Don's secret Dick Whitman history to the government are the only two times in the past two seasons she wasn't written as overwhelmingly negative.

The show could and should do better. For all the "issues" that TPTB of COMMUNITY reportedly have had with Chevy Chase, they've still managed to find ways of portraying Pierce in a positive light. I would like to think MAD MEN might be able to be as good as COMMUNITY with their major characters.

That all said, yeah, the Betty plot was mostly a downer and you'd think they'd finally use this as a turning point in the depiction of Betty's character when she finds out she's not dying. But nooo, they immediately have her grousing about being fat. Ugh. Enough.

Alan, fess up, the REAL reason you wanted Betty diagnosed with a terminal disease was in the hopes she'd start cooking crystal meth and become rising druglord ("druglady"? "queenpin"?) of Westchester county, New York!

Btw, Henry may have "stole" Betty from Don, but that's not going to encourage him because deep down, inside, Henry knows that Betty's "stealable". If it happened once, it could happen again. Hey kids, that's another reason why adultery is bad for either partner. (The More You Know.)

Don / Dawn. Ha! Didn't even make the connection. Nice to see SCDP become, "more modern" with their secretaries. Plus, she was "the most qualified". Altho ... Don's secretary ... Megan will want to keep an eye on her. After all, Don started out the series staunchly claiming not to have a Jew in his department, "not on my watch!" but that didn't stop him from crossing the ethnic divide to sleep with Rachel Menken. Just saying.

Ah, Pete turns the tables on Roger by "stealing" Mohawk Airlines BACK from Roger after Roger tried to steal them from Pete. Nicely played, Pete. Joffrey's got nothing on you.

Harry & The Stones. Or as I'd have put it, "Harold & Donald Go To White Castle". He's so hep with his black (turtleneck?) shirt & jacket, especially next to "Old Man" Draper. Altho speaking of the Old Man, phenomenal how he "psychoanalyzed" the groupie about how she felt and what she expected would happen in the Stones' dressing room.

Ah, Peggy, just as she's winning respect from an older generation, she might have inadvertently hired the younger (half-)generation trying to usurp her position. Altho she was dead on right if Michael can turn it "on" at the office and off, and we find out he's even more "off" at home, that's some Dick Whitman caliber of performance.

Still overall a good ep, even with the show's bias against Betty being a major disappointment.

-- Ken from Chicago

P.S. Joan? Joan? Where for art thou, Joan? And was Lane even in the group shot of Pete's office (pining at the picture of the girl from the wallet, or maybe for Joan--cuz they were awfully chummy last week, and last season)?

Yeah, I just don't see weight gain for Betty as plausible. Not that much weight anyway. My god, they plumped her up like the Michelin Man. I agree it was distracting and didn't look real. And Mr Henry Francis not caring? A political figure? Women who are on the arms of politicians, even at the smallest local level, were often chosen for their all American good looks. I always think of Carcetti's wife from The Wire, that girl next door look. Doughy women are just rare in political circles. Him saying he doesn't care rang totally false. He would NOT want her going to functions with him if she looked that way because it would hurt his chances to gladhand and he would be mercilessly laughed at behind his back and the other political wives would crucify Betty.

It was too much weight gain. Bringing it in as storyline to show depression , how cazy diet pills (amphitimine sp?) use got , and to bring in how scary a cancer diagnosis was then , I was ok with. But it was a little too much. Betty would never have gotten that out of control.